To give it some historical perspective, the Canadian Forces, as stated, established these military family resource centres across the country. They do sterling work in assisting families who have loved ones overseas on any operation. I know the discussion gets focused on Afghanistan, but it is anywhere we send our men and women in uniform. They support that.
Our view, as mentioned here, is that we think we can strengthen this, and it needs to be strengthened. We have a number of policies we are going to put in place very shortly. I talked about the structural piece, but that was to have an individual within our headquarters who would be responsible and accountable--I think there is an issue of responsibility and accountability--to whom we could turn and who would put the policies in place for a strategic framework across the country, to ensure there is a consistent application across the country for our families.
We see an increase in the resources we will put in that area, no ands, ifs, or buts. I can't give you the figures in three days, a week, or two months. Intuitively, I can tell you it is going to cost more. We have the money set aside to be able to do what we need to do, to build on the military family resource centre success and to make it stronger and connect it nationally across the country, to ensure that we probably do more.
What do I mean by that? Here are some of the things we're looking at. It already happens in theatre that families do talk to loved ones by telephone; they get so many minutes a week. Perhaps we can move to video teleconferencing. Other militaries do that. Could we put that in place? Some of that is already actually being done on a case-by-case basis. Back home there are a lot of activities, as all of you see in your constituencies, that the MFRCs do in their work with the families, such as activities on the weekend, to keep the families together.
Again, the challenge has come back to the issue of what role we have to play in supporting the family, especially with mental health. It has been raised here. It is the issue we are going to speak to the department about, of what we can do to make this better on the mental health side. A mental health solution for a soldier is a family solution; it is not just about the soldier. We're putting the director in place--there will be an announcement--and a lot more, to bring it all together to strengthen that piece for our soldiers, sailors, airmen, and airwomen.